


Birds of Prey (And The American Autumn/Halloween Education of One Helena Bertinelli)

by thicccsapphic



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Halloween, autumn fun, dinah doesn't like scary movies, harley and her weird-ass costumes, helena does not understand the idea of american oktoberfest, helena has no chill as usual, helena wants to fight the idea of candy corn, no angst present
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:13:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26718826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thicccsapphic/pseuds/thicccsapphic
Summary: Harley finds out that Helena has never experienced a traditional American autumn and Halloween and decides that this must be fixed.
Relationships: Helena Bertinelli/Dinah Lance
Comments: 32
Kudos: 67





	1. Harley's Great Idea

**Author's Note:**

> hello my lovely wlws! this fic idea has not left me alone so i had to do something about it lol. featuring our favorite awkward lesbian helena bertinelli, badass bisexual dinah lance, and a whole lot of autumnal shenanigans. this is my second fic ever so please go easy on me! comments and kudos fuel me. let's go lesbians!!!

When Harley found out that Helena had never celebrated Halloween, witnesses (Cass, Renee, Helena, and Dinah) would say that they hadn’t seen her so manically determined since their night at the Booby Trap or any time she went to get an egg sandwich.

“So you’ve never been to a _haunted house?_ ” asked Harley incredulously.

“Does the mansion where my family was murdered in front of me count?” answered Helena dryly. Renee snorted.

“Not even a little bit!” said Harley cheerfully. “Whaddabout a pumpkin patch?”

“What the fuck is that?” said Helena. Harley’s eyes opened even wider, if possible.

“Tried apple cider? Or candy apples? Seen any slasher classics? Gone _trick-or-treating?_ ”

“I’ve had sparkling cider? I don’t know what a candy apple is but it sounds vile. The only movies I’ve seen have been in black and white and mostly in Italian and no, I’ve never been trick-or-treating,” answered Helena wearily. Harley seemed to need to take a moment before she spoke again, a rare occurrence. 

“Well, we’re just going to have to fix that,” she said finally, with grim determination, making Helena groan and Dinah and Cass cheer.

“Can’t we just kill people? That’s almost like a slasher movie. And we wear costumes all the time,” protested Helena, prompting Cass to boo.

“It’s not the same!” piped up Cass. “This stuff is important.”

“See? The kid agrees with me!” noted Harley with satisfaction. Helena looked at Dinah for help, only to be met with an amused expression that did not give Helena hope.

“I think that stuff sounds fun,” she said, while Helena muttered something that sounded like “traitor” under her breath.

“Three against one!” crowed Harley jubilantly. Helena knew when she was beat.

…

First on Harley’s “Educating Huntress About Critical Halloween Traditions”, scrawled on Dinah’s mirror in bloodred lipstick, was “exposing Huntress to extremely culturally relevant scary classics”. To Harley, this meant _Friday the 13th_ , _Child’s Play_ , _The Texas Chainsaw Massacre_ , _Scream_ , _A Nightmare on Elm Street_ , and _Halloween_ . At Dinah’s insistence, _Hocus Pocus_ , _Halloweentown_ , and _Coraline_ were added to the list. Harley invited the gang to her apartment for the following Saturday and sent increasingly enthusiastic and emoji-laden reminder texts every single day until then. When the date finally arrived, Helena showed up at exactly seven p.m. She could smell burnt popcorn all the way from down the hall. When she knocked and walked inside, she found Cass, Harley, and Dinah already in the living room. Harley was in a ridiculous pair of Halloween footie pajamas, Cass was wearing a witch hat, and Dinah had a cat-ear headband on. Helena stared.

“Don’t worry, killa, I have something for you too!” said Harley cheerfully, misreading Helena’s bewilderment as feeling left out. She held out what looked like a pair of glow-in-the dark vampire fangs. Helena considered not taking them, but Dinah smiled at her expectantly and Helena, feeling ridiculous, stuffed them in her mouth.

“Adorable,” commented Dinah.

“I am not adorable!” retorted Helena defensively. “I am _intimidating_.” Her message was somewhat contradicted by the way her fangs muffled her speech, and Dinah couldn’t hide a smile.

“Alright, you’re intimidating. Come sit by me,” she said, patting the spot next to her on the loveseat. Helena sat, acutely aware of the warmth of Dinah’s body and how close their thighs were. Her mouth grew dry, which Helena attributed to the fangs.

“Want some candy corn?” asked Cass from the floor, who was fishing handfuls of what definitely was not corn from a brightly colored bag.

“That is _not_ corn,” Helena said hotly. She scooted back in her seat, as if afraid the not-corn might bite her.

“No shit?” said Cass. “Just try some. It’s good.” She held out a sticky fist of the not-corn, and Helena hesitantly accepted and took out her fangs. She gingerly bit a piece with her front teeth and choked almost immediately. Dinah rolled her eyes but not in a mean way, Helena dimly noticed as she sputtered and scrubbed her tongue with her sleeve.

“Are you done?” asked Dinah, holding back a laugh.

Helena couldn’t think of anything to say to reclaim her dignity so she simply announced, “That was _certainly_ not corn,” and stuffed her fangs back into her mouth, her face hot.

“Isn’t it great?” remarked Harley enthusiastically through a mouth full of not-corn. Helena shuddered.

“Alright, girls, whaddaya wanna watch first?” asked Harley, waving two handfuls of battered DVD cases. “I couldn’t decide so I got all of them, plus the ones Dinah wanted.”

“I vote Halloweentown,” said Dinah. 

Helena didn’t know what Halloweentown was but she trusted Dinah’s judgement more than Harley’s so she said, “I, uh, I second that.” Harley picked the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and so did Cass, so they ended up flipping a coin that landed on heads. Harley made a noise of victory and darted to the TV to jam the DVD in the slot, and they settled in to watch the movie.

Helena quickly noticed that Dinah was acting strange. She flinched at the TV, squealed once or twice, and scooted closer to a bewildered Helena, whose only thoughts were of the inaccuracies of the film. 

“Look at those idiots, they have a working vehicle but run into the woods?” she commented. “And there’s no way that much blood would come out. Real blood doesn’t even _look_ like that. What is that, ketchup?” Helena had recently learned what ketchup was and mostly included the information as a way to show off her new knowledge. She snuck a look at Dinah to see if she was impressed, only to find Dinah hiding her face in Helena’s shoulder.

“Dinah, is this. . . _scaring_ you?” she asked incredulously.

“No,” answered Dinah, her voice muffled by Helena’s sweater. Before Helena could say anything, Harley giggled.

“Dinah, it _totally_ is! How? You’re never scared of _shit_!”

“I just don’t like scary movies!” said Dinah defensively. Harley started to tease her but was interrupted by Helena.

“It’s okay, we can just watch the other one. . . Halloween City?”

“Halloween _town_!” corrected Harley in a scandalized tone, but Helena was mostly focused on the grateful look Dinah shot her. Her face grew warm.

“Right, right, Halloweenville,” she said distractedly. She noticed that even though the offending movie had been turned off, Dinah was still resting her head on Helena’s shoulder, and wondered what it meant. She also wondered what it meant that she didn’t mind one bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading the first chapter! the idea of dinah being scared of horror movies came from one of my fav authors @Dreamshaper (specifically, chapter 26 of "Snapshots"). check them out!


	2. Helena Bertinelli and What The Fuck Is A Candy Apple, Apples Are Already Sweet Enough

Next on Harley’s list was making candy apples. Helena offered to host, since Harley’s kitchen was classified as a hazardous waste zone. Dinah showed up early with a grocery bag bulging with apples, sprinkles, caramel squares, and a packet labeled “candy apple mix” that Helena eyed with apprehension.

“How can an apple be candy?” she muttered.

“Just trust the process,” said Dinah, her eyes twinkling.

“I trust  _ you _ ,” said Helena before she could think about it, and immediately turned red. Dinah opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by unnecessarily loud banging on the door. Helena groaned.

“It’s Harley! And Cass!” came a voice from the other side of the door, and more knocking. Helena crossed the room and opened the door to find Harley looking like Frankenstein’s monster if Frankenstein’s monster participated in drag and Cass in clown makeup. Harley was carrying what looked like a gigantic quadruple-decked tote box full of little jars and baggies of glitter in eye-watering shades and Cass was clutching an industrial-sized bottle of chocolate syrup.

When Helena stared, Harley added, “We thought you might not have enough glitter for the candy apples!” Since Helena couldn’t recall ever owning so much as a flake of glitter in her life she supposed this was technically true and stepped back with a grunt and a nod, her version of a warm welcome. She heard Dinah call a hello from the kitchen and remembered that Dinah had been about to say something before Harley and Cass showed up, but oh well. Maybe she could ask her later.

...

“Why is it  _ red _ ? The apples are already red. And they’re already sweet,” informed Helena seriously.

“It’s a proud American tradition to add unnecessary sugar and dye to  _ every  _ food item!” said Harley brightly. “The only American tradition I’m proud of, actually,” she added in an afterthought. Meanwhile Cass was busy squirting chocolate syrup onto her caramel apple and dotting the surface with (Helena suppressed a shudder)  _ more not-corn _ . Desperate to look away, her gaze landed on Dinah, who was about to take her first bite out of her candy apple. Helena watched mutely as Dinah’s teeth shattered the shiny red coating and sank into the apple. When Dinah licked a drop of apple juice from the corner of her mouth Helena felt a bloom of heat in her gut and made an involuntary noise in the back of her throat. Dinah heard and locked eyes with Helena, then  _ winked _ . Helena felt her face turn apple-red, and, desperate for a distraction, did the first thing she could think of, which was to grab a handful of not-corn from Cass’s pile and stuff them into her mouth. She felt the sugar hit her like Harley’s mallet or one of Dinah’s high kicks and her eyes watered. With a Herculean effort, she swallowed the likely radioactive glob of mealy sugar and wondered to herself what the hell was wrong with  _ normal  _ corn.

“You good?” asked Dinah, her eyes glittering with mirth. Helena didn’t trust herself to speak yet so she simply nodded.

“You haven’t made an apple yet!” said Harley accusingly while dumping a mountain of pumpkin-orange and inky black edible (Helena hoped) glitter onto her apple that already sported a thick coat of caramel and chocolate syrup over a candy shell.

“Well, I don’t know how,” said Helena, affronted.

“It’s okay, I’ll help you,” said Dinah. “Do you want candy or caramel on it?” Helena was at least somewhat familiar with caramel so she picked that one and plunged the stick into the top of the apple like a syringe of adrenaline into the chest of a dying patient. 

Dinah let out a cough that might have been a laugh and said, “Okay, now it’s time to dip it into the caramel.” Helena lowered the apple into the pot and pulled it up with a brisk movement reminiscent of stamping a bill and Dinah did laugh this time.

“No, you have to kind of. . . rotate it, like this,” she said, placing her hand gently over Helena’s and demonstrating. Helena’s skin burned where Dinah’s hand touched hers but not in a bad way and she fleetingly thought that she should make  _ another  _ apple after this even if the first one tasted terrible just so Dinah would touch her again. Her thought process was interrupted by an obscene moan from Harley as she took her first bite from her apple monstrosity and Helena gave her head a little shake to clear it, her brow furrowed.

“Thank you. For, uh, showing me. Yes,” said Helena, and took a big bite of her apple to avoid speaking further. Her eyes widened.

“Good, yeah?” said Dinah, and Helena could only nod. It was  _ delicious _ .

“Want some candy corn on it?” offered Cass, and Helena shot her a withering glare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> glass of water for Miss Bertinelli please


	3. Helena Bertinelli Is A Lesbian (Obviously)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pumpkin patch shenanigans! oh yeah

Next on Harley’s list was visiting a pumpkin patch.

“Lucky you have so many flannels!” noted Harley as she rooted around in Helena’s closet uninvited. “Not surprised though, big ol’ lesbian such as yourself.” Helena whipped her head around from where she had been sitting cross-legged on her bed, cleaning her crossbow.

“I--what?” she sputtered.

“I said, I’m not surprised you have flannels seeing as you’re gayer than a U-Haul blasting NPR on the way to Home Depot,” Harley explained pleasantly.

“Wh--how did you know I was gay?” said Helena incredulously.

“Are you kidding? Besides the fact that you’re always making eyes at Canary--” Helena choked at this “--the eyeliner, the stompy boots, and the ‘don’t fucking come near me’ energy that turns  _ way _ up when you even  _ see  _ a man.”

“I do  _ not  _ make eyes at Dinah!” insisted Helena hotly. “I’ve never made eyes at anyone in my  _ life _ , I don’t even  _ have  _ eyes--”

“Relax, killa! Your secret’s safe with me. Although you’re not very subtle,” Harley added thoughtfully, and turned back to the closet. “Oooh! Wear  _ this _ one,” she said, pulling out a thick purple and black flannel with silver buttons.

“What do you mean? Do you think Dinah knows?” asked Helena in a panic. God, how could she be such an  _ idiot _ , she was going to ruin  _ everything _ , Dinah was her  _ friend _ \--

“Probably!” said Harley cheerfully. Helena groaned. “But relax! You didn’t hear it from me, but anyone with eyes or even  _ one  _ eye could tell that she’s into you too.” Helena lifted her head from her arms, a faint spark of hope beginning to blossom. Maybe she wouldn’t have to flee the country after all.

“What do I do?” she asked hoarsely. For once, the janky clown seemed to take things seriously.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she said gently. “Just be yourself. Canary likes you for  _ you _ .”

“Really?” asked Helena.

“Of course. Who wouldn’t? Honestly, if it wasn’t for Canary, I’d have already climbed you like a tree--”

“Okay, okay!” said Helena loudly; clearly, Harley’s uncharacteristic tender moment had passed and she was back to being her usual loud and horny self.

“Anyway! Plenty of time to make a move tonight at the pumpkin patch!” said Harley briskly, clapping her hands together.

“I--how do I do that?” asked Helena frantically.

“Oh, there are plentya ways!” said Harley excitedly. “Ask if she’s cold and offa her your flannel. Or, sit next to her on the hayride, and cozy up to her! Ooh, or sneak off togetha to the barn when nobody’s looking--”

“Harley!” said Helena, but she wasn’t listening.

“--let me know if you guys need company--”

“ _ Harley _ ! I think I got it, thanks,” Helena said hastily; she didn’t know exactly what Harley was implying with the barn comment but knowing her it was probably something wildly inappropriate.

…

She and Harley and Cass met up with Dinah and Renee at the pumpkin patch that evening. Dinah looked radiant in a cropped denim jacket and dark orange blouse with dark green trousers and brown leather boots. Helena had gone with the purple and black flannel Harley suggested and paired it with ripped black jeans, her usual combat boots and fingerless gloves, and a charcoal gray knit beanie, a look Harley referred to as “intimidating lesbian chic”. Dinah seemed to like it too.

“You look great,” she said with a wide smile, her dimples showing.

“Thanks, so do you,” said Helena, and thought about what Harley had said about making a move. “Uh, shall we?” she asked, offering her arm like the men in the old movies she had seen and almost facepalmed in shame but then Dinah was sliding her arm through Helena’s and smiling even more brightly, if possible.

“We shall,” Dinah said playfully. Helena had no idea where they were supposed to go next but Dinah steered them toward the snack stand, which was selling apple cider and pumpkin donuts. Helena bought them each a cup of hot cider and a donut and they sat on a hay bale nearby to enjoy them.

“This is my first time trying apple cider,” Helena mused.

“Do you like it?” Dinah asked.

“Yeah! It sure is. . . appley,” said Helena, trying to think of something intelligent to say and failing. She almost cringed but Dinah let out a giggle and Helena remembered what Harley had said about Dinah liking her for her. Somehow that reminded her of the moment they had had before Harley interrupted them on the candy apple night and so she said,

“That night we were making the candy apples. It seemed like you were going to say something before Harley interrupted us.”

“Oh,” said Dinah, and was she blushing? Helena couldn’t tell. “I was gonna say. . . that I trust you too.”

“Oh,” said Helena, who didn’t know quite what to say to this but it made her feel warm inside in a way different from the cider. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, you know it’s been really hard for me to trust anyone since my mom died,” said Dinah, her eyes downcast. This Helena understood. Dinah continued, “But you make me feel safe.”

“You make me feel safe too,” Helena said, staring into the warm brown eyes that so often slipped into her thoughts. Dinah met her eyes too, and a long moment passed where neither of them seemed to know what to say.

Finally Helena said, “Should we find the others then?” and caught a flicker of what might have been disappointment in Dinah’s eyes, but she nodded and stood up. **H** elena felt a spike of frustration at having ruined whatever moment they were having but she didn’t really have a clue what she was doing. None of her training had prepared her for new love, only love lost that could never come back. She swallowed the lump in her throat and followed Dinah to find the others.

Despite herself, she ended up having a pretty great rest of her night at the pumpkin patch. She went down the big slide with Cass and bought a pumpkin for each of the girls to bring home and carve later (Harley insisted on getting the most bizarrely-mutated-looking pumpkin of the bunch, to no one’s surprise). She got lost in the corn maze with Renee who swore violently until they were free and ended up going into the barn with Dinah (not for whatever shady purposes Harley had suggested, but because someone had mentioned a baby cow and she has nearly barreled down the family in front of them in her rush to go see it. She ended up spending over forty minutes with “Butterbean”, as Helena had christened him, while Dinah sat nearby, trying to be exasperated but only thinking of how adorable Helena was). But her favorite part of the night was the hayride with Dinah. All the girls piled onto the back of a tractor bed covered thickly in hay, and Helena made a beeline for the back corner where she could keep an eye on the situation. Of course, Harley tried to hijack the tractor and almost got security called on her but Helena didn’t even notice because suddenly Dinah was next to her.

“Mind if I sit here?” she asked, and Helena scooted over to make room so quickly she nearly toppled over the side of the tractor. Dinah grabbed her arm to steady her.

“Easy,” she murmured, and Helena was on fire. She cleared her throat.

“Um, go ahead,” she said, gesturing casually at the hay next to her. Still, it was hard to breathe when Dinah settled in, almost imperceptibly pulling her denim jacket tightly around her.

“Are you cold?” Helena asked. Dinah looked at her curiously.

“Yeah, a bit. How’d you know?” she asked.

“I. . . notice things about you,” said Helena lamely, and waited to be made fun of. But she was surprised.

“You’re sweet,” said Dinah definitively, and Helena blinked. She couldn’t recall the last time she had been called  _ sweet _ . Scary, badass, determined, yes. But  _ sweet _ ? She didn’t want to admit how much it stirred something inside her that she didn’t think she was allowed to show. Nevertheless, she wordlessly took off her flannel and settled it onto Dinah’s shoulders, gently fixing the collar and brushing Dinah’s beautiful golden locs out of the way. Dinah sighed contentedly and rested her head on Helena’s shoulder, and without even thinking about it Helena rested her head on top of Dinah’s. With a rumble, the tractor started moving and both of them stayed where they were. The hay was itchy and Helena was chilled by the loss of her flannel but she thought that she had never been more comfortable.


	4. Helena Bertinelli Carves A Fucking Pumpkin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helena and the gang carve some pumpkins!

Next on Harley’s list was carving pumpkins. That’s how they all ended up in Renee’s backyard one crisp Sunday evening surrounded by pumpkin guts and an impressive assortment of knives. Harley was dressed up as some kind of swamp monster and Cass was a white-sheeted ghost.

“You guys know you don’t have to dress up every time, right?” asked Dinah, eyeing Harley’s ghillie suit suspiciously.

“Well, yeah, but I just had this old thing lyin’ around!” said Harley brightly. Helena tried to think of a context in which anyone would need to have a spare swamp monster costume just lying around and failed. Maybe it was an American thing.

“Why?” asked Dinah curiously.

“She sometimes hides in the bushes at the park to scare the pigeons,” answered Cass matter-of-factly from under her sheet. Helena opened and then closed her mouth. Luckily, Renee saved her from having to respond by returning from inside the house with a giant bag of hard pretzels and an impressively large bottle of whiskey.

“What are you gonna carve on your pumpkin?” asked Dinah.

“Uh, it’s a secret,” blurted out Helena, who had given her pumpkin no thought. Dinah raised an eyebrow in amusement.

“Alright,” Dinah said mildly. “I was thinking of doing a cat.”

“That--sounds good. Cats are good. I saw a cat once,” said Helena feverishly. Why couldn’t she just talk like a normal person to Dinah? Well, she didn’t really talk like a normal person to anyone, but Dinah made her extra nervous. She scraped around for pumpkin guts in her pumpkin even though it was already fastidiously cleaned out, and suddenly had an idea for her pumpkin. She grabbed an X-acto knife and got to work. Harley was chatting with Renee while carving what looked like a familiar clown onto her mutated pumpkin. Once she was done, she procured her mallet out of seemingly nowhere and smashed it to smithereens. Dinah, who had been watching, shook her head and turned to Cass, who was carving triangle eyes into her pumpkin.

“Going traditional I see?” asked Dinah, adding whiskers to her jack-o-lantern cat.

“I’ve never actually made one of these before, so it seemed like a good place to start,” said Cass with a shrug. Meanwhile, Helena was focused on her pumpkin with her trademark focus and precision, using her knife like a surgeon’s scalpel, brow furrowed in concentration.

“I wonder what she’s making,” mused Cass.

“Apparently it’s a secret,” said Dinah amicably, putting the finishing touches on her pumpkin. It probably wouldn’t win any awards but she was proud of it. It looked like the cat she had had when she was little, Sardine.

“Weird. But I’m not surprised,” said Cass. Normally Helena would have been offended by this but she was too lost in her artistic prowess to notice. A bead of sweat dribbled down her forehead, and she swiped it away impatiently, not moving her eyes from her masterpiece.

“Renee, do you have a vegetable peeler?” she asked impatiently. Renee hit her with a stare.

“Do I look like I eat vegetables?”

“Fair enough,” muttered Helena. She would just have to make do with the knife she was using. With practiced, deadly precision she peeled a swath of skin from the pumpkin and started scraping the inside of the pumpkin further to create areas of different shading when a candle was placed inside. Dinah and Renee watched her curiously.

“You know, I’ve never seen anyone get this into carving a pumpkin,” noted Renee.

“Well, that’s Helena for you I guess,” said Dinah. “She never does anything halfway.” Privately she thought about how much she admired this about her. She suddenly smelled something acrid and turned to see Harley attempting to light the smashed remains of her pumpkin on fire using the alcohol. 

Not even the noxious fumes were enough to distract Helena though, and several minutes she announced with obvious pride in her voice, “It’s done.” She turned it toward the rest of the group. On her pumpkin Helena had carved a highly realistic, intricately detailed. . . smaller pumpkin. Cass burst into laughter.

“What?” said Helena mutinously. She thought she had done a good job.

“Nothing,” said Cass, wiping her eyes. “It’s just. . . I’ve never heard of anyone carving a pumpkin. . . onto a pumpkin.”

Helena frowned. “Is that a bad thing?” Dinah placed a calming hand on her back.

“It looks great, H,” said Dinah soothingly. “It’s very creative.” Helena visibly relaxed.

“I like your cat too,” she said.

“Thanks,’ said Dinah. “It kinda looks like my old cat, Sardine.” Helena suddenly let out a loud guffaw that was so uncharacteristic everyone looked at her.

“What?” she asked defensively. “Sardine. That’s funny. It’s like the fish but it’s not the fish.” Helena liked fish. She didn’t mention the countless hours she had secretly spent at the Gotham Aquarium and the local pet shop watching the fish in wonder. Noticing everyone still staring at her, she cleared her throat. “Should we, uh, should we put the candles inside and stuff?”

“Got ‘em right here,” said Renee, jerking her head to a matchbook and a few mismatched votive candles on the table. Helena grabbed the nearest one and promptly dropped the candle. When she leaned down to grab it and stood back up she smacked her head on the underside of the table with a force that made her entire cranium rattle and she immediately dropped back onto the earth like a rag doll.

“Oh, Jesus Christ Helena,” sighed Renee.

“Oh shoot, are you okay H?” asked Dinah in a voice tinged with laughter but also concern. “Here, let me help.” She grabbed Helena under the armpits and heaved her into a standing position and the feeling of her hands nearly sent Helena right back to the ground but she forced herself to stay standing.

“I’m good,” she declared, wobbling slightly, and to prove how good she was she picked up the matchbook and tried to light a match, which of course didn’t light. She lightly screamed. Suddenly Dinah’s warm hands were on hers, guiding the strike so that a flame immediately bloomed into existence. Helena figured there may have been a metaphor here somewhere but she was too dizzy to think hard about it and let it go.

“Thank you Dinah. You are very kind to me,” she mumbled dazedly.

The warmth from Dinah’s smile mirrored the light from the match dancing in her eyes.

“You deserve it, H,” she said, and sounded so sincere that Helena didn’t know what to think except that she didn’t ever want to lose the feeling inside her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! i was having trouble figuring out the transition after helena's little fish moment but eventually i decided to go with my favorite trope of her being the most awkward person alive xoxo


	5. Helena Bertinelli Does Something About Her Damn Feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here it is folks!!!

The next Friday morning they all met up for egg sandwiches at Sal’s.

“Okay, so we still have Oktoberfest, a haunted house, a Halloween party, and trick-or-treating with Cass left!” said Harley brightly. Helena groaned, but secretly she was greatly enjoying all of the fall activities and touched that her friends cared enough to keep setting them up, and only kept up the protests so that no one could accuse her initial protests as being wrong. Helena hated being wrong. Harley continued, “Obviously the Halloween party and trick-or-treating gotta be on Halloween itself, so that leaves the haunted house and Oktoberfest! Whaddaya guys wanna do first?”

“Oktoberfest,” said Dinah, a little more quickly than necessary, Helena noticed. She made a mental note to protect Dinah at all costs when they did go to the haunted house. She began ruminating over whether she would be able to bring her crossbow or she would have to conceal it in her coat when she realized that everyone was staring at her expectantly, waiting for an answer.

“Uh, Oktoberfest sounds good,” she said. Hopefully she’d be able to practice her German, which had gotten rusty. Dinah smiled gratefully at her.

“Alrighty! The Gotham County Oktoberfest opens at 5:00 tonight,” said Harley, reading off her phone screen, which was so webbed with cracks that Helena didn’t know how the hell she could see anything. “That gives us. . . six and a half hours to get ready.” Helena suddenly remembered something.

“Shit, my bike is in the shop,” she said, smacking her forehead. “Maybe I can. . . walk?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, it’s like fifteen miles away,” interjected Renee. 

“I could pick you up,” offered Dinah. “Does 4:30 work?” Helena nodded, feeling warm inside. 

“Great! Then it’s settled,” said Harley, clapping her hands. Helena considered asking what people typically wore to such an event but didn’t want to seem stupid if everyone else knew so she kept her mouth shut. She would look it up after on the phone Dinah made her buy. “Let’s all meet at the ticket booth around five?” They all agreed and went their separate ways for the meantime, Dinah to go back to sleep, Renee probably to get a drink, and Harley and Cass to blow up a bank or something, presumably. As soon as they were out of sight, Helena Googled “what to wear to Oktoberfest”. After reading the first webpage that came up she knew what to do. She remembered seeing a Bavarian souvenir store in the historical German section of Gotham, which was only a couple of miles away, and set off in her typical brisk pace to beat the crowds she was sure would be swarming the place for Oktoberfest prep.

Surprisingly, Helena was the only customer in Hermann Gifts. Maybe everyone else already owned traditional Bavarian wear. 

“Hallo, wo sind die Lederhosen?” she asked, pleased that she retained enough German from her training in Sicily for a simple request. It was her fifth language, so she figured that counted for something. The pimply teen behind the counter stared at her. Helena frowned. Maybe she had said it wrong. “Haben Sie die Lederhosen?” she said clearly.

“Uh, I don’t actually, y’know, speak German,” the teen muttered, scratching at his neck. Helena took a deep breath so she wouldn’t yell. She and Dinah had been working on that lately. 

“Okay. Do you have any lederhosen?” she said slowly, as if speaking to someone who didn’t understand English either.

“Uh, yeah. Back and to the left,” he said, clearly eager to be rid of this scowling stranger.

…

When Helena opened the door for Dinah at exactly 4:30 pm, Dinah seemed, not for the first time, struck mute by the sight of her.

“How’s the fit?” asked Helena, lifting her arms slightly. She had heard Cass ask that once. She was wearing a full set of lederhosen, complete with a blue-and-white checkered shirt, leather suspenders, knee-high wool socks, leather shoes, and a Bavarian hat with a little feather in it.

“Wow. You look. . . wow,” said Dinah, who looked very pretty (although not very German) in a flowy olive-green top, light blue jeans, and bright red lipstick. Helena dipped her hat at her, struck by a sudden burst of Bavarian confidence. Perhaps in another life she had been German.

“ _Danke_. You do as well,” she said confidently. Dinah flashed her a dazzling grin.

“You’re going all out, I see,” she said. Helena’s confidence seemed to deflate for a moment.

“Is that. . . a bad thing?” she asked. Maybe it was too much. Dinah’s eyes widened.

“No! I love it,” she said honestly. “I love that about you. When you do something, you never do it halfway.” Helena cleared her throat, in which a lump had begun to form. She never imagined that anyone else could find her obsessive determination endearing.

“I--thank you,” she said quietly. She cleared her throat again. “Ready?” This time Dinah stuck out her arm, mirroring the night of the pumpkin patch.

“Ready,” she said.

. . .

Harley was not as tactful as Dinah. When she saw Helena, the janky clown laughed so hard she fell to the earth and started wheezing while in the fetal position.

“Killa, this isn’t Munich,” she managed to wheeze in between high-pitched laughs. Helena looked around self-consciously. Almost nobody was dressed up like her. Dinah glared at Harley.

“Shut it, clown. I think Helena looks great,” she said assertively, placing a hand on Helena’s shoulder and almost causing her knees to buckle. Helena was spared needing to respond by Renee showing up and letting out a long wolf-whistle.

“Lookin’ good, Bertinelli.” Helena and Dinah looked to Harley as if to say _see_? “You’ll probably pick up all the chicks in that getup,” she continued. Dinah suddenly stopped smiling.

“ _Or_ we could all just have a good time together without picking up any chicks,” she said decisively, leveling a hard stare at Renee. Something seemed to pass between the two of them that Helena didn’t quite catch. Did Dinah not want Helena to be attracted to girls? Was she homophobic?

“Are you homophobic?” Helena asked suddenly. This caught Dinah off guard and she began laughing almost as hard as Harley had when she saw Helena’s outfit. “What?” asked Helena with a frown. It had been a simple question. Renee and Harley were chuckling too.

“Honey, the only straight person here is _Cass_ ,” explained Renee with a snicker.

“And I’m not even sure about _that_!” said Cass cheerfully, but Helena wasn’t listening. She stared at Dinah. Dinah liked girls?

“You like girls?” asked Helena in wonder. Dinah smirked.

“Duh,” she said playfully. Something rose in Helena’s chest, fizzy and warm. Does this mean she actually had a chance?

“Next in line!” came a voice from the ticket booth. Helena pulled out two hundred-dollar bills, enough for the five of them to get wristbands for unlimited tickets. She also handed Cass two twenties for snacks before the girl made a beeline for some kids from school.

“I want cotton candy!” announced Harley.

“What the fuck is that?” asked Helena. She was suddenly struck by a horrible thought. “Is that like the _not-corn_?” she asked in horror, her hand subconsciously reaching for the crossbow that of course wasn’t there. Dinah laughed.

“You’ll see,” she said, and grabbed Helena’s hand to lead her to a food truck. Her touch lit a shiver up Helena’s spine that almost shook her hat right off her head, and sweat immediately began pouring out of every gland on her body. Dinah didn’t seem to notice, squinting at the menu board, then looking at Helena with a small grin, seemingly waiting for something. Once Helena remembered how to read, the shock of what was on the menu rendered her speechless for nearly half a minute.

“ _Deep fried pickles_ ?” she asked, thunderstruck. “ _Deep fried butter_ ? On a _stick_?” She was once again rendered mute, struggling to come to terms with the depths to which American food could sink.

“Ain’t it great?” asked Harley jovially, biting into an enormous _thing_ on a stick that Helena couldn’t even begin to identify.

“What _is_ that?'' Helena asked wearily. She no longer had the strength to fight.

“Chocolate-bacon-wrapped corn dog, baby!” said Harley thickly through a huge mouthful of the culinary disaster.

“ _What the fuck is it with you people and ruining corn?_ ” Helena yelled. She wasn’t angry exactly but she didn’t have very many methods to express her emotions. Dinah placed a calming hand on her arm.

“Hey, it’s okay. They have caramel apples like the one you liked,” said Dinah soothingly, pointing. Helena followed the line of her arm. Dinah was right. Her heart rate began to match its usual pace. Helena ended up spending nearly sixty dollars on Harley’s corn dog, the cotton candy, a caramel apple for her, a candy apple for Dinah, a jumbo kettle corn to share, four cups of hot cider, and waffle fries, jalapeno poppers, and something called a deep fried Klondike bar for Harley. Helena didn’t ask; the less she knew, the better. Harley left to ride the tilt-a-whirl and Renee slinked off to the beer tent but Dinah stayed with Helena and was still holding her hand even though Helena knew that it was sweaty enough for moisture to literally be dripping onto the ground. Soon they stumbled upon a carnival shooting gallery. Dinah gasped dramatically and elbowed Helena hard in the ribs.

“Look at that! They have a canary plush!” It wasn’t exactly a canary, Helena noted with her keen eyes, but it was yellow and shaped closely enough.

“How much for a round?” Helena asked the booth operator casually.

“Five dollars,” he answered, picking at his teeth with a pinky nail.

“Done,” said Helena, handing over a crisp bill, and picked up the gun. Taking a deep breath, she squeezed the trigger and left a hole dead center in the first target, then moved her arm a fraction to hit the next, and so on until she had hit all ten targets, all perfectly aligned within the center circle. Dinah doubted it had taken more than four or five seconds. The carnie stared, his mouth dropped open a bit.

“The canary, please,” said Helena smoothly, and when the man didn’t respond she huffed and snatched the closest canary plush, handing it to Dinah. The dazzling grin Dinah flashed her made her absolutely certain she would shoot a thousand targets just to see it again.

“My hero,” she said playfully, eyes dancing orange and red and blue in the lights of the closest carnival ride. Helena stared at them, mesmerized. Everything came crashing down onto her--how much she cared for the woman in front of her, how safe and even relaxed she felt in her presence, how she wanted to give Dinah everything she deserved and more, for the rest of their lives. She swallowed, the depths of her realizations speeding up her heart. How did she do this? She had certainly never learned how to admit her feelings to anyone in Sicily. Desperately racking her brain, the lights glittering in Dinah’s eyes a distraction, unless--? She glanced away from Dinah’s eyes with difficulty and looked at the closest ride, a Ferris wheel, and suddenly she had an idea.

“Dinah, would you like to go on the Ferris wheel with me?”

  
  


This, Helena soon came to realize, was _not_ like the movies. She distinctly remembered watching _Love, Simon_ with the girls several months before, and not once in the Ferris wheel scene had Simon sweated so heavily from nerves that his vision had actually been blurred, or maybe it had been edited out in post-production. Helena wasn’t sure, but she knew that sweat was literally dripping off of her face onto the floor of the Ferris wheel carriage she and Dinah were in, and she was shaking so hard she could almost feel it rattling the aluminum cage. She tried to surreptitiously mop her forehead with her checkered sleeve and almost punched herself in the eye because her hands were shaking so badly. Dinah looked at her in concern.

“H, are you alright? What’s going on?” Helena didn’t trust herself to speak without choking.

“Oh shit, are you afraid of heights? Do you want me to get the operator to let us off? Talk to me, Helena,” said Dinah, a little desperately. The temptation to take the easy way out overwhelmed Helena for a moment. She pictured it in her mind’s eye: reassuring Dinah that yes, she actually was afraid of heights, and let Dinah stop the ride for them, and they could go find Renee in the beer tent, and Helena could stifle her feelings like she had since she was eight years old. Dinah would drive her back to her barren apartment and she would lie on her bed alone with her squeezed fist of a heart and think about how things could be different if she wasn’t so broken inside. She almost did it then. Her mouth opened and then she saw the concern in Dinah’s liquid eyes and wondered if maybe she was allowed to want one more thing. Not for her dead family or honor or revenge, but for herself.

So she whispered, “I’m not afraid of heights.”

“Then what is it?” asked Dinah uncomprehendingly.

“I’m afraid of. . . this,” said Helena honestly, waving her sweat-soaked hand in between the two of them. “Us. What we have, Dinah, or what I feel for you, it’s just. . . I’m not used to wanting something for myself. But I want you,” she finished in a whisper, head hanging low. Soft fingers grazed her chin, gently pulling her face up so she was looking directly into Dinah’s eyes.

“I want you too, Helena,” Dinah whispered, and kissed her. Helena’s knees went so weak that if she had been standing she was certain she would have fallen over. Dinah’s lips were impossibly soft and warm and heat bloomed in Helena’s core, sending a wave of shuddering warmth through her entire body until she felt like she was melting, melting into the embrace as Dinah gently cradled her cheek and Helena’s hand blindly found the back of Dinah’s head. She could stay like this for hours or forever, with the woman she loved more than anything in the world.

Dinah gently pulled back.

“Was that okay?” she asked, searching Helena’s eyes.

“Can we do that again?” asked Helena hoarsely, eyes darting to Dinah’s lips. Her tongue darted out and wet her bottom lip. Dinah laughed and it sounded like music.

“Of course we can, baby,” Dinah murmured, and a wave of warmth slipped into her stomach at the pet name. This time, Helena leaned in, and that’s how they stayed until the ride shuddered to a stop at the bottom and they got out and walked to the quieter outskirts of the festival. Helena was ridiculously, foolishly happy. The sparkling cider feeling fizzed in her chest more strongly than ever and her stomach was a helium balloon. She looked at Dinah, who was grinning just as hard as she was.

“Does this mean. . . Do you wanna be my girlfriend?” Helena asked, with mountains of hope.

“Of course I do,” Dinah said softly. “Y'know, I’ve kinda had a thing for you since you came down that slide.”

“ _What?_ ” said Helena uncomprehendingly. “I mean, I’m not all that in touch with my emotions or anything, but when we met at Mile Island, I felt. . . something. Which was more than I’d felt in a while. I had finished my list and it didn’t seem like my life had anything left for me. But seeing you, working together. . . it made me want to want things again. Not for my family, or honor, or revenge. But for myself.”

“Oh, baby,” said Dinah. “I can relate to that. But now we have Cass, and Renee and even Harley fucking Quinn. We have a purpose. Best of all, we have each other. _And I’m not letting go_ ,” she added in a whisper, grasping Helena’s hand in hers.

It was the best night of Helena’s life.


End file.
